est includes only the priests; the second, the soldiers;
the third, the merchants; and the fourth,
and lowest, comprises the common laborers. According
to Mr. Crawfurd, who visited the island,
the wives of the soldiers frequently sacrifice themselves
by stabbing with the Jeris, and the body
is afterward burned, and “ with the princes, the sacrifice
of one or two women is indispensable.” The
high mountains on Bali contain a number of lakes or
tarns, which supply many streams, and the natives
are thus enabled to irrigate their land so completely,
that about twenty thousand tons of rice are annually
exported to other parts of the archipelago, after a
population of nearly three-quarters of a million is
supplied. In 1861 Java had only a population of
three hundred and twenty-five to a square mile, while
Bali was supposed to have nearly five hundred, and
it is probably the most densely populated island in
these seas at the present time.
The Hindu religion also prevails over a part of
Lombok. On this island a huge mountain rises up,
according to the trigonometrical measurements of
Baron van Carnbée, to a height of twelve thousand
three hundred and sixty English feet, and probably
overtops every other lofty peak in the whole archipelago.
CHAPTER IV.
C E L EB E S AND T IMUR.
Ju/ne 18th.—We anchored this evening close in to
the coast of Celebes on a shallow plateau, which is
really only a slightly-submerged part of the island
itself. This word Celebes is not of native origin, r O “ land was probably introduced by the Portuguese, who
Iwere the earliest Europeans that visited this island.
Kt first appears in the historical and descriptive writ-
jings of De Barros,* who informs us that it was not
iliscovered until 1525, fourteen years after the Portuguese
first came to the Moluccas; but at that time
[they were only anxious to find the regions where the
Iclove and the nutmeg grew. Afterward they were
[induced to search for this island from the rumors that
¡came of the gold found here; and, indeed, to this
[day, gold is obtained in the northern and southwest-
jern peninsulas. At first, Celebes was supposed to
I * Jao de Barros, who wrote a classical history of the regions discovered
and conquered by the Portuguese in the East, was born in 1496
an(l died in 157°- He never visited the Indies, but carefully and faith’
¡fully compiled his descriptions from the official records, which were all
Intrusted to his care, in 1532. The first decade of his work was published
in 1552, the second in 1553, the third in 1563, and the fourth after
fins death. He was, therefore, a contemporary of most of the early navi
'gators whose history he narrates.